“We don’t need to make America great again. We need to make our ideals great again: democracy, justice for all, human and civil rights.”

Lowell’s note: I couldn’t agree more strongly with this rebuttal, by UVA lecturer and journalist Coy Barefoot, to Donald Trump’s bizarre, warped, unAmerican notion of “making American great again.”

by Coy Barefoot

THE BEST DAYS of this nation are yet to come, I believe that. But that future renaissance for which I hope will only be realized when we as free people have the courage to once again stand up for the ideals on which this country was founded.

We don’t need to make America great again. We need to make our ideals great again: democracy, justice for all, human and civil rights.

America was not supposed to be about a company’s profit or the power of an army. America was created to stand for something. America was founded to be that enduring symbol that would speak to human freedom— the on-going preservation and strengthening of human liberty. Everything else: the government, capitalism and profits, political parties and power, the rule of law, and even the Constitution itself are simply tools we have developed as people to help us achieve our ideals.

Our ultimate challenge is and has always been to avoid sacrificing the end to the means. When we put personal ego, profit or political power above our ideals, we all lose. Liberty loses. We make America great again not by doubling-down on a play to the worst angels of our nature— but by once again discovering the ideals for which we stand.